Senator Lindsey Graham, member of the U.S Senate Armed Services Committee, raised questions about US policy on Syria, “where civilians are dodging bullets and bombs from President Bashar Assad’s forces in the crossfire of a war that has killed 200,000.”
“How can we train a Free Syrian Army or send any other force into Syria if we don’t first deal with the Assad air threat?” Graham asked. “How in the world could you train somebody to go fight IS and then one day, they turn on Assad and not expect him to kill them before they get the capacity to come after him? How does this work without dealing with Assad?”
Graham went on: “Well, 92% of the flights, they tell me now, I thought it was 80%, 90% of the sortees flown in Syria have been flown by the Americans. Why won’t the Arabs get in the fight? Here’s why the Arabs won’t get in the fight. They’re not going to follow a strategy that’s doomed to fail. Training the Free Syrian Army is a good idea. But if you train these guys up, and you say you can only fight ISIL, then Assad is going to barrel bomb these guys when they get any strength at all. So the Arabs are telling the Americans we will go with you, the Qatari emir said I’ll pay for the entire cost of the Syrian operation. The Saudi Crown Prince told us you can have our army, but you’ve got to have a plan that rids Syria of Assad, because we’re not going to go in and leave him in power, a puppet of Iran. That’s the problem. He doesn’t want to take on Assad, Obama, because he’s so worried about upsetting the Iranians when they’re wreaking havoc in the region.” (Source: Syrian Coalition + Agencies)
